


Stars and Painted Lies

by ObliObla



Series: Obli's Fuckruary 2020 [20]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Affairs, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fuckruary 2020 (Lucifer TV), Heavy Angst, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: Chloe marries Cain after all. Eve still breaks out of Heaven and shows up at Lux. Two relationships based on lies, dragging on foryears.Lucifer wonders if this is what purgatory would be, if such a place existed.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Marcus Pierce, Eve/Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Series: Obli's Fuckruary 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619344
Comments: 73
Kudos: 160





	Stars and Painted Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoanDiary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoanDiary/gifts).



> Day 20 Prompt: Booty Call/Cuckolding
>
>> Say you didn't see it, that I saw right through you  
> Say you didn't mean it that I mean nothing to you  
> Like you said, do you believe me  
> That I'll be right for you?  
> Say you love me like you used to
>> 
>> And we'll vacation first class  
> I'm breaking your fall; you're breaking my ass  
> You're working all day, hating on all the bitches at work  
> You say you're ok; you're faking, fucked up  
> Drinking all day, you give me a cup  
> And I'll be damned if we can make it out of this alive, baby
>> 
>> But is this what you want, what you wanted?  
> Do you need love? Am I enough for you?  
> In time you’ll find I’ve got my baggage too
> 
> —From _First Class_ by Rainbow Kitten Surprise 

Lucifer wonders if this is what purgatory would be, if such a place existed.

This is a nice hotel—and he knows well the savor of places that charge by the hour—but it is, essentially, empty. Sterile. White and beige and paintings no one ever bled for. Cried for. Loved.

He does not _like_ it, precisely, but the proprietor owes him enough favors the debt could never be repaid over the span of a mortal life. And they’re _exceedingly_ discreet. It is not the same room every time, though they all look nearly identical, differing just enough to be unsettling. He does not dawdle in the hallways—they are dully lit and lined with doors that contain a multitude of sins.

He has enough of that.

She is not in the room when he arrives, hanging the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door before he shuts it behind him, though he wishes she were. It’s the waiting that wears on him, he tells himself. He has never been a patient Devil. He used to bring flowers, chocolates, massage oil, the highest rated vibrators. He used to cover the bedspread with rose petals or draw a bath made fragrant with myrrh or order room service to display, like some sort of courting bird preparing his mate a nest.

But she is not his, and he is not hers, so he sits in an armchair in a shadowy corner and awaits his pleasure. Or his punishment. He’s never been entirely certain which is which.

His phone buzzes with a text, and the hope that it is _her_ rises in his throat like bile. That she can’t make it. Maybe even that she’s done with this entire charade. But he is spared, or perhaps denied. It’s only Eve, wondering when he might be home. He’s never quite needed to lie to her; he almost wishes he’s had to. Surely even _his_ morals ought to be shattered for something so irreparably broken. Yet he knows they’re both little more than consolation prizes for each other, tied together by a fall, denied who they truly desire. After all he’d done, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse a second time when Mazikeen asked to be returned to Hell.

Eve’s tears may never be cleansed from his skin.

The door opens, and he shuts the phone off before hastily slipping it back into his jacket pocket. As if he were some naughty schoolboy, not an immortal having a useless, mortal affair. No one has ever made him feel so unbalanced. So uncertain. So _lost._

The lines around her eyes get deeper every time they meet, not that he would ever, ever mention them. Once upon a time, it might have been something they could joke about. Something she could roll her eyes over while still looking at him fondly. He receives no eye rolls from her any longer, nor fond glances. Their friendly banter died so long ago he barely remembers how it felt.

She’s on the phone as well, an anxious edge in her tone he wonders if anyone else can hear. “No, no, there’s no need for you to come in. I’m just going to hole up somewhere and finish this paperwork so I can put it on your desk bright and early tomorrow morning. Yes, Trixie will be home for spring break, but she’ll be staying with Dan. We’ll do Taco Tuesday, maybe. No. Yeah, it’s fine. It’s… I-I love you too, Marcus. See you and Leah when I get home.”

She doesn’t have the luxury of not needing to lie. He would apologize if that was something they still did for each other.

She hangs up the call and shoves her phone into her bag almost violently. When this thing between them was new, so novel they could pretend it wasn’t rotten to its core, she might have retired to the bathroom to powder her face. She liked to make herself beautiful for him, or for herself. He hadn’t been too cruel to tell her she was beautiful whatever she did, but he was certainly far too proud to admit he appreciated the mask she wore.

Maybe if they both wore their masks, he thought, it wouldn’t feel so real. _Everything_ is too real, now.

She sits on the foot of the bed and pulls off her shoes, tossing them to smack into the leg of his chair. Some part of him thinks he should flinch, should react in some way. But he’s done pretending at humanity for her. He still bleeds in her presence, but one day, he supposes, he’ll stop. And then maybe this mutual self-mortification can end.

She flops back onto the mattress and sighs, and he takes this moment when she cannot look back to observe her. The blond dye in her hair covers gray as well as brown, he knows. Her hands shake ever so slightly from exhaustion. There is a run in the back of her tights she hasn’t noticed yet. She takes his breath away, even now. The part of him who had faith for eons that his Father might yet forgive him still believes he might find salvation somewhere within her. But he is only allowed between her legs, not within her heart.

He rises and divests himself of his suit jacket, throwing it behind him. He kneels at the foot of the bed and takes her tights down, one by one. She inhales sharply, expecting yet not expecting his touch as she always does. As if part of her believes he’s a specter haunting her life until he touches her. And maybe he is little more than a ghost without the heat of her body under his hands.

He can’t fault her for marrying Cain, not truly, not _now._ He’s had many regrets over his long life, but this one burns the most keenly. That he could never tell her the words she’d once wanted to hear. He’s not even certain if they’re true anymore—another thing he’s too much a coward to examine. At least they age together; they’ll die together. And he will continue on as he always does, as he always _has,_ just without this particular mistake to sigh and hum her tainted pleasure beneath him.

He presses his lips to her ankles, her calves, the hollows of her knees. He mouths up the fabric of her skirt and runs his tongue along her waistband. She exhales slowly, and her hand falls to the mattress beside his head, diamond gleaming. He’s always hated that ring, gaudy thing it is. She used to take it off, to hide it from his sight. She doesn’t bother anymore.

He returns his attention to her and nips at her skin. He traces the lines of stretchmarks over the slight swell of her belly, pressing his lips to the soft spot beneath her navel before he remembers himself and travels upward. If there had been a time to convince her Marcus really was Cain, really was the Sinnerman, it was before that damn child came. She cried the night she found out, sitting in the bathtub where she thought he couldn’t hear. He still doesn’t know if they were tears of joy or sorrow, and he’s never asked. That alone is enough to damn him twice over.

He misses Hell, sometimes. Things were easier then.

He unbuttons her shirt from the bottom up, kissing between her breasts. She pushes his head away unceremoniously and sits up. She pulls off her shirt, unfastens her bra, and throws both onto the chair. She turns to him and unbuttons his shirt, not touching him, not quite looking him in the eye. When she runs out of buttons, she pushes the shirt off his shoulders and reaches for his belt. He hisses when her fingertips graze him through his trousers, his body betraying him as it always does with her. Or maybe this is a kindness for the both of them.

He fondles her breasts as she pulls the leather free, weighing them in his hands. He brushes her nipples, and she bites her lip but doesn’t cry out. They make eye contact, suddenly, accidentally, but she doesn’t look away, stares directly at him. He wishes her gaze made him feel small, insignificant, but through the hard expression she always seems to wear with him these days, she’s nearly smiling, and he’s still so damn glad of any measure of joy on her face.

When Eve looks at him, he wonders if she sees him at all.

She chuckles, lowly, _knowingly,_ in a way he once thought wasn’t like her. But they know each other now; even if she still doesn’t believe he is who he says, she knows him better than anyone ever has. Every cruelty, every shadow. And he knows her—every bit of pettiness, every wanton desire. Cain, damn him, may have her in his bed, but he still thinks her an angel that will save him from perdition. Lucifer knows that they are both devils, truly, and his soul will never be cleansed in her waters. Even if he can’t quite stop trying.

She unbuttons his trousers, yanks down the zipper. She reaches in with complete confidence and takes him in hand. He is, as always, eager with her, and she chuckles again as his hips buck and he moans.

“They’re still not enough for you?” she asks mockingly, pulling his trousers down far enough to roughly tug at his foreskin, twisting around the base of his cock on every stroke. “That _girlfriend_ of yours, all those people who fall into your bed, and _still_ you want it this bad?”

“Yes,” he pants, desperate in this unholy devotion. “Chloe, _yes.”_

“Don’t call me that,” she says sharply. Her rhythm increases, and he grits his teeth against the sweet agony of it. She’s wrathful today, it seems, but he’ll take that too. He’ll take anything she’s willing to give, and she accepts all the things he doesn’t know how to say.

“Dear?”

“No.”

“Darling?”

_“No.”_

He clenches his jaw and grinds out, “Baby?”

“Stop.” Her hand freezes, clenched tightly around his base to stop him from coming off, and he groans. He is the lord of Hell, but he will beg for this, will beg for _her,_ for whatever mercy she has left in her heart. Hell must have long since frozen over, after all; the fires are dead and buried.

“Please, Detective, _please_ wank me harder.”

She complies with a scowl, and he lets his eyes fall shut, giving himself over to the pleasure of it. When Eve appeared, bored of Heaven and her dullard of a husband, she had picked him up from the shadow of a Devil he’d been. And he will always be grateful for that, but she refuses to believe he’s anything but the angel from the garden—a memory of a kindness he never granted. It’s not like his devil face has ever come back to prove it.

And he’s coming, almost incidentally, making a mess of himself like she intends. She still tries so desperately to bring him down to her level, or drag him up to hers, not willing to accept they’re both in this gutter together. Here, there are no stars. His mouth tastes bitter, but the high is always so much better in her presence.

She wipes her hand on his trousers, and he retires to the bathroom, snagging his jacket on the way. He kicks off his shoes, his socks, his slacks. He cleans his issue from his skin with a damp cloth and wipes at the worst of the mess on his trousers with another. He hangs them up to dry, does a bump off the counter with the baggie of cocaine waiting in his jacket pocket, and returns, naked.

He sniffs, wipes at his nose, but there is no longer judgement on her face over his various vices. She has no stones left to cast over his sin. She digs around in her bag and pulls out her handcuffs, a roll of condoms, and a small bottle of lube, setting them on the bedside table. She drops the bag to the floor and turns to him, crooking a finger in his direction.

He rejoins her, and they maneuver until he’s on his back, arms over his head. She pulls the cuffs too tight, enough that he will bruise. He will trace the line of mottled purple and yellow until she leaves his presence and it disappears, lost with all of his scars.

She has never once asked about his back.

She no longer questions that he’s already hard again. He imagines she blames the cocaine or the molly or believes him to be partaking of a few little blue pills. Or she flatters herself that it’s because of her. Or maybe, and most likely, she doesn’t even care. He presses his hands back into the pillows above his head. He could break or unfasten the cuffs, of course, but it is all he can do to let her believe this fantasy. That she controls him in any way that matters. And maybe she does.

Since when has he ever truly known himself?

She rises from the bed, pulls off her skirt, and folds it over the back of the chair. Her panties are utilitarian and plain, but he licks his lips at the sight of them. When she lets them fall to the floor, his mouth waters an almost embarrassing amount, if he were capable of feeling shame for it. He has enough things to be ashamed of. She clambers back onto the bed and rests her knees on either side of his head, toes pointed toward the headboard. She is quiet when she kneels enough he can reach her entrance to tease. When the roughness of his stubble slides over her clit, she grunts from pain, repositioning herself.

She rides his face with no concern for him, until he is drowning in her wetness, denied breath, denied everything but the taste of her skin under his tongue. But that is all he wants. That is _everything._ He is not gentle when he clamps his lips around her clit and sucks. She braces on his upper chest, fingernails as claws that draw blood in thin lines. The bed squeaks with her motions, his cock beating against his stomach, and he _could_ take himself in hand, could bring himself off as she uses him for her own pleasure. But the cuffs stay on, and he enjoys the way his arms ache when he pulls at them.

With a last, long groan, she’s coming. He can’t see her face, but he knows precisely what it looks like in the throes of ecstasy. And it is as Heaven to him—just as beautiful, just as cold.

She doesn’t stop, only works herself on his face until she chokes on a breath, until she loses herself again, falling forward onto his chest. He licks her through it, soaking up as much of her release as he can. He dreams of the contractions of her cunt around his tongue and wakes each morning with the echo of her tartness in his mouth. He is beginning to understand what madness is.

She snags a condom off the table and rolls it down on him, not gentle with her knees and elbows as she turns around, as she grabs the lube to drip some onto him, as she works him a few times to distribute it. Another kindness, though he’s not sure who exactly it’s for. Her heat is intolerable even through the latex when she takes him in hand and lowers herself onto him. He clenches his hands into fists, only barely managing to not break the cuffs as he bottoms out inside her. She waits, testing the stretch, and he moans. If this is the only way he can tell her what he wishes he could say, he’ll take it.

It’s all he has.

She rolls her hips, and her eyes slip closed. Still, she is quiet. She makes him work for her sounds, as if there’s too much truth in them. Or too many lies. He may not be able to pull her desires from her mind, but he knows her pleasure as he knows any human’s—the sweat on her upper lip, the tension in her muscles. The way her breaths catch, the way her pulse accelerates. She can hide many things from him, but her ecstasy is plain in every line of her body, and this is why he comes back. This is why he continues to subject himself to these torments.

They’re still so much sweeter than everything else.

She scratches a line down his stomach to his hips, and he hisses, relishing the pain. She grips there, using him for leverage, pulling herself onto him over and over. Her cunt trembles around him, and he knows precisely how close she is.

“Do you think about this when Eve’s riding you?” she asks suddenly between ragged breaths. “Do you think about _me_ when you’re inside her, when you’re inside _all_ of them?”

He frowns. She’s been angry before, but this is new. Different. She’s never met Eve—Eve doesn’t even know her son and his new wife are in the same city as her, let alone only a degree of separation away, and he plans on keeping it that way—and she rarely uses her name. “What are you…?”

“They don’t know you,” she hisses. “They don’t _care_ about you. Half of them don’t even remember your name the next m—“

His patience, so thin these days, snaps, and the cuffs unfasten with a twitch of a finger. He tosses them off the bed, then grabs her by the hips and pulls her off him. He rises, quick as the snake in the garden, and shoves her into the mattress face first, pressing into her from behind. “Cease this,” he whispers into her ear.

“Why?” she asks, turning his head to the side, working back against him as he starts up a faster, harsher rhythm. “It’s true, isn’t it? I thought you cared about the truth, devil boy.”

He pulls her hips up to improve the angle, and she cries out. He takes it for the victory it is, then slows, grinding into her leisurely. “You were turned down for promotion again, weren’t you?”

“I’m happy as a detective.”

“Oh, _certainly.”_ He shakes his head and repositions his hand to finger her clit. Two can play at this game, and no one can do petty better than the Devil. “I’m not surprised after your clear rate fell off a particularly nasty cliff when I left.”

“You are _not_ why I—“

“How’s that new partner working out, anyway? Has _he_ got the eggs you need?”

“I never _needed—”_

“I’m sure you _love_ working under Marcus Pierce.”

“Yes,” she says quickly. “He’s a good boss.”

 _“And_ a good husband?” He pinches at her clit like he knows she likes.

She bites back a moan. “I-I love him.”

He laughs. “Do you, now? Then why are you here”—he aims a slap at her left arse cheek, and she keens involuntarily, tightening around him—“working under me instead?”

“Why are _you_ here and not with your precious Eve?” she asks icily.

He huffs out a breath. _“I_ admit I don’t love her.”

“Bastard.”

“Hypocrite.” He grabs her by the hair and pulls her head back, her back arching with the change in angle. “Do you think about _me_ when Marcus Pierce is fumbling between your legs like he’s never touched a woman before?”

“No, he’s…he’s good,” she whimpers, nearing the verge again. “He loves me. He thinks I’m p-perfect. He…he… Oh, _oh, shit.”_

But he slows, holding her on the edge, not letting her go over. “Perfect, you say?” he whispers roughly as he teases her. “He doesn’t know you at all, does he?” And she doesn’t know him, doesn’t even know his name. Doesn’t know his trade. Doesn’t know half the things he’s done.

And whose fault is that?

She reaches back and grabs his hair as revenge, hard enough it arcs pain through his scalp, but he welcomes it, presses into the contact. “Tell me he’s the best you ever had,” he breathes. _Lie to me again._

“He… I-I can’t…”

“No, you can’t, can you?” His hips are snapping against hers, and she’s keening continuously, babbling out nonsense. But as she approaches her peak, he pulls out entirely, turning her over, slipping two fingers inside. He knows it’s not enough, and when she tries to buck into him, he holds her hips down. “You know, _I_ could have had him,” he muses, pulled back into a time he’d rather forget. Somehow simpler and so much more complicated than this mess he’s dragged them into. “That suburban undercover job. Mark and Luke pretending at partnership. Practically gagging for it, he was.”

She shakes her head, whether to negate his words or because of the pleasure building inside of her he doesn’t know. Nor does he particularly care. She seems beyond words, now, or at least beyond the worst venom of her anger. She gasps as he works her into a further frenzy, every motion a refutation, a promise, the mockery of a vow.

This is the covenant they make with each other.

He considers, sometimes, letting his wings out to play just to see what happens. Just to see how she would react. It’s an old impulse, this need to cause chaos, to hell with the consequences. Even now, his wings burn with the desire to manifest, to shake with his ecstasy as he rides her. Eve has no interest in them, but _oh,_ this human crying out in front of him—maybe her fear would be as sweet as her pleasure. But he is not quite the evil thing humanity believes him to be, no matter how much he sometimes wishes he were. No matter how much easier not feeling, not _caring_ would be. He does feel, he does care, and he knows she does too.

He eases himself back into her almost sweetly. Almost kindly. It’s all he can offer her. He doesn’t tease, now, simply brings her smoothly to the edge and holds her as she falls over. She clenches rhythmically around him, and he savors every twitch of her muscles.

She reaches up to hold his face as he starts to move again, anger eased as it almost always is. She can be mean, cruel— _monstrous,_ even—but so can he. In this, he hopes, they truly understand each other. The mantra as he works within her, holding back to help her find another peak, isn’t, “I didn’t mean what I said,” but, “We both deserve this, don’t we?”

_You deserve someone as good as you._

Not quite what he meant at the time, he must admit, but beggars can’t be choosers.

They don’t precisely come simultaneously—such romantic clichés abandoned them sometime around year three of this damn affair—but he has been far more gentlemanly to plenty who were far less worthy of it than she. He does not leave a lady unsatisfied, and after he fills the condom, he fingers her quickly to completion, not willing to drag this out any longer.

He pulls away from her, tosses the condom, returns to the bathroom, and takes another hit. He pulls his slightly damp trousers back on and, when he returns to the main room, slips on his shirt. She, too, has redressed somewhat, pulling her shirt on sans bra and slipping her panties over her thighs. Her handcuffs have returned without comment to the bedside table. They are, most likely, not done for the evening. But clothing is armor, and vulnerability is dangerous when not buffered by the artificial intimacy granted by empty orgasms.

She makes her way to the minibar before returning to the bed. She shoves four miniature bottles of various whiskeys at him and opens her own shooter of tequila. He drains two as she works her way through hers. They used to have wine, he remembers with something between a smile and a grimace.

“Are you hungry?” he asks to break the silence. “I could order something from room service.”

She shakes her head and returns to the minibar. She drains another half shot of tequila, and he consumes his other two bottles, barely tasting them. It’s the waiting that wears on him, he tells himself. He might actually prefer limbo, were it more than a pleasant fantasy.

After the silence has stretched on long enough to be nearly intolerable, she flops to the pillows and glances up at him with some parody of demureness. She’s never been much of a flirt, and he no longer finds her awkwardness endearing. “Eat me out?” she says, she asks, she offers.

He takes it as the concession it is and drains the last of his bottles, crawling up the bed. She allows him to pull off her underwear and spread her legs, and he licks at her waxed labia before delving past them. He knows she prefers to trim, knows that this is for Cain, and tries to ignore the pain in his chest. He is hardly in a position to judge any of her choices. Or her sacrifices.

He licks into her slowly, thoroughly, building her pleasure until she is gasping softly. Only then does he take her clit into his mouth, flicking it, suckling at it, soothing the rough treatment he applied earlier. They do not do apologies anymore, and this is the closest he can get to telling her he’s sorry.

He _is_ sorry—sorry they’re in this situation, sorry for all the terrible choices he’s made. It is much, much more his fault than hers that they’ve ended up here, in this cookie-cutter hotel room with the white and the beige and the passionless paintings. She is no innocent, either; but he, _oh,_ he would almost cheerfully burn in Hell for what he’s done to them all.

This, then, is his penance, pressing two fingers inside to stroke over her g-spot as he sucks harder, pressing circles against her clit with his tongue. This is all he is capable of offering, and this is all she can afford to accept. There is so much they both could still lose.

She moans as she comes, free with her sounds for once, and this is another boon she grants him. Another kindness above what he could reasonably demand. Her pulse throbs against his tongue as he draws her down from the edge, and she grabs at his shoulders, pulling him up. She reaches, again, for the condoms and lube.

Her phone rings.

She has a young child, a tedious husband, a demanding job. This is a common enough occurrence, and she only sighs, pushing him away to lean over the edge of the bed and grab her purse. But as she fishes within its depths for her phone, his phone rings as well, the vibration crawling up his spine like an electric shock.

He pulls it out and blinks numbly at the screen. It’s Eve. He rises and walks to the curtained window as she answers her phone as well, both of them keeping their voices low.

“Hello, my darling,” he says with an exuberance he knows she can’t tell is fake, “something the matter?”

“No, everything’s fine,” she says, and he breathes an internal sigh of relief. “I’m just sitting here with my son, who is alive and also, apparently, in L.A.”

Smacking into Hell after falling for days or weeks or years or an eternity had felt rather less sudden.

“Pardon?” he croaks.

“Well, you kept leaving me alone, and I started wondering where you went. So I looked. And I found something _really_ interesting.”

“Did you now?” he says automatically. Across the room, the detective’s voice has gone increasingly hushed and frantic.

“I found Chloe Decker,” she announces, almost as if she’s expecting praise for this accomplishment. He can imagine her doe-like eyes, the ever innocent but triumphant look she’d be giving him. “And then,” she continues, voice zealous and eager, “I found out she was married. And when I looked up her husband online…”

He knew this day would likely come. Los Angeles is large, certainly, but not nearly large enough to hold his multitude of sins. He should have just dropped Cain in a volcano no matter how sad it might’ve made…

“Lucifer,” she says from behind him, voice flat with too many conflicting emotions.

He turns, with some difficulty, to meet her gaze, and what he sees causes the phone to slip from his hand, Eve forgotten. He will always forget everything for _her._

There are tears on her cheeks, and she’s cradling her phone in her hands like a dead thing she once loved. “He…he says I’ll never see Leah without supervision. He said he’ll make sure I n-never work as a detective again. He said…” A sob escapes her mouth, and she rubs a hand over her face. “He said he’ll drag our names through the tabloids, that he’ll make sure I never have another moment of peace.”

She drags herself from the bed, and he steps closer, automatically folding her into his arms. She buries her face in his chest and asks, “What am I supposed to do?”

He doesn’t mean to do it. Doesn’t mean to do anything but wrap her in his arms and promise that he can fix it. He’s the Devil, after all. And there is no rule he wouldn’t break for her, even if their relationship, such as it is, is shattered well beyond repair.

It’s that damn protective instinct, that single spot of _goodness_ that flickers however tenuously in the depths of his rotten soul. He is filled with such clear and certain resolve that he _will_ solve this that the wings burst from his back in an awesome display, smashing one of the table lamps and knocking one of those ugly, soulless paintings right off the wall.

Startled by the noise, Chloe pulls away, looks to one side, then the other, and…

“No,” she whispers.

The wings disappear with a snap. He opens his mouth. He closes his mouth. He opens his mouth. “Det... Chloe, I—“

“It’s all true,” she says, taking a step back, another, until her bare thighs press against the edge of the mattress. “It’s _all_ true.”

“Yes,” he says softly, hands down, palms open, as vulnerable as he is capable of making himself.

For a moment—a single beautiful, terrible moment—he thinks it will be okay. That she will calm down. That he will be able to explain. That they will deal with all this together, as the partners they can no longer be. But he knows fear even more keenly than pleasure, and he watches it spread inexorably through her body. Her hands shake, her pulse races, and her legs tense. And then she’s pushing past the bed, throwing open the door, running, running, _running._

The door slams shut behind her, and he stares at it, then turns away and starts picking up pieces of broken lamp in a daze for something to do with his hands. A particularly jagged shard of porcelain slides against his palm, but he doesn’t bleed. The bruises on his wrists are already fading.

But this mortification can never truly end.


End file.
